Chronicles of Naruto the Terrible
by Dark and Chaotic
Summary: Self Insert Story. Fem Naruto. The world is on her shoulders and she lives on borrowed time. She can do only so much to save the world and it won't be enough. Too bad she's way too cynical and proud to just let things go. Inspired by "Dreaming of Sunshine"


Chapter One

of

Chronicles of Naruto the Terrible

a

SI story

Things were different back in the day. We were like pioneers into something much greater than us that had swept the world by a storm. There was hardship that had created bonds among us and even when certain stages could take literal months to complete, we were still drawing strength from that bond to keep on going until, finally, the hurdle would be overcome and we set onwards to battle the next one.

It's a weird thing I'm talking about. Weird in the sense that it had nearly nothing to do with my current situation and yet everything, and I mean Everything, that had happened since then, has been shaped by those days in my life where forty people from all over the world would just stop everything they are doing, so they could raid together under the directions of a single person.

Yes.

Raids.

Are you surprised?

I used to be a gamer. An avid one. I'd wager I'd still be one if there was still internet to go around and games to be played of the massively multiplayer online variety. The year had been 2005, I was ten years own and the world laid at my feet whether it wanted to or not and I fought tooth and nail for every little thing I could think of mainly because girls shouldn't play computer games. But I digress.

The world was at my feet and I robbed and pillaged it with both hands, gleeful, excited, awe-struck, star-struck and, most of all, completely taken with the greatest MMO that there ever was – World of Warcraft. It was the vanilla days and people had no idea which side was up, compared to the later years where such things as builds, talents and gear were more refined to fit a certain nieche. In those days I was a hunter who spent her days thinking up new ways to annoy those poor folk at Crossroads, harass noobs in Stranglethorn Vale, or I'd help smuggle Kazzak into Stormwind for shits and giggles. Yes, that was me at ten years old – an extremely annoying and arrogant little shit with more pocket money from their parents that they knew what to do with. Things changed, obviously, but back then I was level 60 with a mix of leather and mail gear that did or did not work well with each other and I was a Beast Master with the fastest possible pet in the game, which was a rare lioness that stalked the Badlands and that had taken me solid two months of counter-stalking to get. I also played as Night Elf Female, because, as a little girl myself, it was obvious that girls ruled and also because Night Elves were pretty and I had this pretty cotton candy elf (that was a thing from the start of the server, if I remember correctly).

Horde hated me, my fellow Alliance despised me but I couldn't be happier because I was That Little Shit. It was a video game of all things. But people took note of me, yelled at me, sent me hate mail. I even had a chat once with this really disapproving game master but that was due to that one time I ninja'd an item (ninja- remember that word, it will make sense later). And I couldn't be happier by all the vitriol that spilled my way because someone was finally taking notice.

And no matter what I did, my parents never really paid attention to me. Good grades were expected. They were the norm and I wasn't praised. Being smart was also expected of me. It didn't matter to them how special, how good I was at anything I did. It was accepted as what I should be and that was it. No praise, no attention. Only work. Only their own problems that, as later on it dawned on me, had been because they'd nearly had a divorce at the time and it had been because of me. But more of that later. Cus all of this really started in 2005 and things escalated since then because of the choices I made in a silly little video game that doesn't even exist anymore.

So, ten year old me, girl genius with too much smarts, too much free time and too bored with the conventional life to care anymore about good opinions and being a good little girl. At the time, as a level 60 Hunter with mediocre gear and lofty achievements that ranged from doing impressive Upper Blackrock Spire's General Drakkisath kiting maneuvers, to pretty much kiting anything anywhere within the game's limits and also decent damage for a beast master, it hadn't seemed as a big thing to me then when a single warrior approached me one day in the later stages of Vanilla.

He was a human warrior with what I could pinpoint as quite the decent gear. He had taken his time to gather the important for raids dungeon set (which was actually shit but we didn't know any better at the time, go figure) and he had impressive tanking items such as the vigilance charm and General Drakkisath's shield, the Draconian Deflector. He also had several tier 1 Warrior items like a help and shoulders, which dropped from the raid instance Molten Core. All in all it was a decent character standing in front of me with a proposition that was probably responsible for the change of course in my life.

His name was Bucketpants and he asked me to join his brand new raiding guild.

888

Bucketpants was one of those rare and exceptional players that you get to meet once every few years and that was if you were as active as I was when it came to playing MMOs. He was also what you'd call my first Field Commander and the things I learned from him I apply to this day. At the time, Bucketpants had been in his mid thirties, with a wife and two baby girls. He was also a retired veteran soldier who had lost the use of both legs and suffered from severe neurological pain still. All in all, this was all things I pieced together after raiding with him solidly for four-five years. I can talk about Bucketpants and wax poetic about his leadership skills for days. The long and the short of it was that Bucketpants was someone who still sought the challenge and had the need to lead people, to do people management, to figure out logistical problems (like helping warlocks gather up soul shards or prompt certain slackers [you know who you are, you slackers!] to get to the damn raid in time).

Bucketpants was the kind of guy who occasionally raided high on painkillers and possibly half-asleep from them and he had been still coherent enough not only to lead a successful raid of forty people but to also manage DKP (Dragon Kill Points) and loot distribution.

So yeah, after spending some of my most defining growing years in his presence it's painfully obvious why I respect the guy so much. When I had finally gotten my own microphone and joined teamspeak proper he had also been the guy to keep me company while I did my homework. He was the guy who gave me advice about the bullies I had to deal with in school (and yes, I was also an exremely annoying and arrogant little shit in school as well). Me, the person who thought they owned the world, being in the presence of such a person... Well, it had been an eye-opening, humbling experience. But not in the sense most people would think. I had finally made an effort to better myself, to try and be less annoying and after a long stint of people watching, I had finally managed to make friends of my own. That effort had been cheered upon by Lord Bucketpants and his dear Lady Wife. But as much as I wished a crippled, scarred middle-aged retired soldier from across the Atlantic was my real dad, that could not be so. And it was a bittersweet experience. With time and growing up, I felt things becoming awkward because, sometimes, even when realizing what the problem was (yourself), that did not necessarily mean the problem was half-solved already.

I was arrogant. I still am arrogant. And I had the confidence of a queen of the world. Some of it with coverage, most of it hot air and the daring spunk to spin the world on my little finger. The day came when my parents finally started taking notice that I wasn't doing as well as they thought I was. And instead of trying to solve the problem and figure out when their little girl genius had started going down the path of sociopathdom, they dished out punishments. No internet for you. No going out. No pocket money. Of course, by that time I was already at the apogee of my puberty and thus my hormones were also at their highest and most turbulent.

My rebellious phase had begun in the face of parental restrictions that had come too late, for them and for me. I did not do drugs or alcohol. I wasn't a criminal nor did I do anything that was incriminating per se. But stuff happened. Weird stuff that was too weird to be just coincidence. Stuff that got people I didn't like sick from allergies they had or a sprained ankle, or had their car malfunctioning just so that they couldn't make it on time. Or that person's dress ruined by a set of unfortunate circumstances. And things started pilling up. And all those skills Bucketpants had been teaching me in order to connect myself more to people, I used against them.

Ocasionally, in days like this one, I ask myself if I could've made things better? If I had just done some things in a different way? Perhaps I would not have been here. Perhaps I'd be happily married to the guy who broke my heart and no, that wasn't Bucketpants. I'd get to that eventually. Perhaps I'd still be home and Ori wouldn't be dead. Perhaps Ori would've never existed...

What ifs were a terrible thing. But then again I was also a terrible person. I was a coward and a liar of the worst sort, that told half-truths laced with equally half lies that became more and more convoluted over time only to spiral out control into something so magnificiently horrible that even I would begin asking myself if that had been the best course of action.

I learn things quick, you see, and one of the first things I ever did was to learn that for each and every action there was a reaction, a consequence of equal or greater (rarely lesser) force. People were like consequences, only a bit harder to predict, which made them far more interesting for me to study.

So, I end up asking myself this.

What kind of person does it make me when faced with the choice between the few friends I had and the shattered life of a single mother who had lost their son before even getting to hold him, and waking up in a completely different world in the shoes of someone who'd carry the weight of the world on their shoulders?

I am a very selfish person. My friends must have been very worried about me. Perhaps still looking for me. Lord Bucketpants must be very disappointed in me. After all he had been the one who preached fighting for every breath and for every bit of what you had and for your happiness.

I don't remember how it happened. My money is on the depression finally reaching its peak and having me throw myself off of that same bridge I crossed nearly everyday fighting that singular thought of doing just that. It's funny really. But nowadays I find a lot of things funny that aren't funny, not really. MJ, one of my closest friends, used to say it's a coping mechanism and that it was ok to find ways to cope. I have a lot of coping mechanisms. Most are weird and detrimental, probably.

Anyways. I am here now. I've been here for a while and, let me tell you, self-awareness is a weird and gradual thing that should not be messed with.

A piece of chalk hits me square on the forehead and I yell, freaked out by the sudden hit, falling off of my chair. I get up, rubbing at the bruise that would probably disappear by the end of class and with a furious scowl find my ass back in my seat, while the entire class was laughing at my expense.

"Naruto, pay attention!" Iruka yells in exasperation, while I cross my arms and pout as furiously as I could.

"Yes, Iruka-sensei!" I say but both he and I know I'd be off in my own little world within minutes.

It's not his fault, his lectures aren't boring and Mizuki is actually competent as well, to the amazement of the fans (had they known). It also helps that the real world has always been slightly more normal than the prism of life presented through the purview of the artist creator of this world.

It's my fault, really, to go back with the original train of thought. I'm not absent minded per se, but my mind tends to go off on tangents and wander away in the least opportune moments. Which is why I usually busy myself with a few things at once so I could at least focus for once. I am easily bored to top it all off and sometimes I just can't help myself when an opportunity just happens to present itself before me, like an enticing harlot hungry for my money. It might be the fact that despite everything I still am an extremely annoying and arrogant little shit. It might be because there was a giant nine tailed demon fox stuck somewhere in the more abstract parts of my belly. It might be because I am and will forever be a very vindictive and spiteful bitch. Or it might be because I had been deprived of the little attention and acknowledgement I had managed to collect in my previous life.

I could yell, scream, scowl, pout or do whatever else, but I'd be mostly dismissed and ignored. Except when people were laughing at my expense (all children were born with that inherent cruelty). Adults for the most part were reserved and kept away from me, occasionally gathering the courage to scold me when I was particularly insufferable. The cold shoulder routine was my daily life.

Was I physically or mentally abused in some way?

No.

Was I starved?

Touch starved mostly and particularly lonely yes.

Hungry? No. There was a village funded service which provided food for the single elderly, those who could not provide for themselves, particularly orphans like me and those who'd sign up for said service. Having said service at my disposal meant I was not given pocket money or a budget of my own to rely own. That being said I still managed to save a little cash here and there, especially because my budget was handled directly by a specially created bank account sort of under the Hokage's supervision. While I could not use that cash directly, I still saved it up, dreaming fervently of better days when I'd finally be ninja, considered an actual adult and capable of buying my own house. I already have a pretty good idea in which neighbourhood it'be. Something spacious but quiet and private, two or three stories, less Feudal Japan more discrepant modernism. Anyways. A lady comes twice a day to leave me food and that's that.

I am not a second hand citizen. I am not completely treated as a civilian. I am an orphan with the status befitting an orphan – I am a nobody, or at least as nobody as paperwork and first glance can make me. Which, considering the furbal stuck in my belly, is a pretty damn good thing. Jinchuriki are not common knowledge in this village.

I am Naruto Uzumaki. I may have been something else in the Before. But in the Now I am Naruto Uzumaki, the first girl to become Hokage, believe it!

Am I playing the part? No. It's just who I am. And as I am arrogant, annoying and smart, as I am spiteful and vengeful and with a blacklist of little evils done against yours truly that grows everyday, I just don't have the desire neither the time or energy to pretend to be something that none of these people have seen or have experience in any way. Do I want to be the Hokage? Naturally. The enviable prestige that comes with the title alone is worth all the effort, blood, sweat and tears that would be spilled to achieve it. It was one of my more aloof goals, something tangible to work towards as a final goal should things not go as bad as... well. Things will go bad. Essencially, I was living on borrowed time and I have 16 years, more or less in this world to make sure it doesn't get destroyed. Not the most warming thoughts as your average 12 year old to have late at night when you're trying to sleep. Yes, 12 of those 16 years have already gone to waste and I have terribly little to show for them.

I didn't stop the Hyuuga Kidnapping attempt, also known as the Kumo Fiasco.

I didn't stop the Uchiha Massacre.

I didn't make Uchiha Itachi in any way aware of who I truly am and what I truly know.

I haven't told Old Man Hokage anything about the future.

Why? Because the only fucking advantage I have in this God-forsaken world is my knowledge of things to come, of characters and their reactions to things. And with that singular advantage gone, I cannot safely and accurately predict what could happen. Consequences could blow all over the place because we are not talking about a small insular community of rurally inclined ninja clans in the employement of the Daimiyo of the Land of Fire (and yes that is my unbiased opinion of Konoha, thank you very much).

Also, what can a small child realistically do in any of the given situations above? Nothing. A child the age of 4 or 5 should not understand the concept of politics or even the concept of the word concept to begin with. Little child freaks like Itachi and Kakashi (yes, those so called prodigies are freaks of nature and should not exist because, holy fuck, does that mean the laws of nature are fucked). My opinion has been and will remain that chakra fucked up this version of Earth beyond all recognition. I fancy that we might be realistically speaking somewhere around the eighties or early nineties of the twentieth century if only for what little technology is present. I haven't been outside of Konoha and I don't know what the world is at large, though what maps I've seen of the so called "Elemental Continent" leave me speculating about a lot of things. Knowledge of things outside the Elemental continent is super sketchy at best and the land mass itself doesn't look like anything I've ever studied or seen in geography. What is worse all of the maps are more or less drawn by hand, which means that they are even more inaccurate. Basically everything about this continent pisses me off. The one thing that I know for certain is that the distance between Konoha and Suna is around three days by foot at top jounin ninja speed. My guesstimate is that the Elemental Continent is about the size of Europe, more or less, but until I can go out in the world and explore nice and proper, I won't have a proper view of things.


End file.
